Republicans have been looking to the administration to shrink the size of government, reduce the deficit by cutting services and encourage hiring by cutting taxes. Soon, the president will release the budget, and we are expected to see scalpel-like precision in how he will cut spending by reducing redundancies and waste. For the president, who is desperately trying to move right of center, and the Republicans who are looking to starve the government into submission, nothing is sacred (except maybe Medicare, Social Security and Defense).
The contentious relationship that both parties had leading up the Midterm elections created a lot of DOA Bills (my characterization) that would face a united Republican opposition on the floor of the Senate. The Senate was where Bills would go to die. While the lame-duck session showed that pre-election stubbornness may lead to cooperation, the new Congress has not shown signs of improving. Party line votes continue in the house, where the Republicans have symbolically voted to repeal Obamacare. Senate majority leader Reid has already ensured that the bill will not be introduced to the floor. Same game, different party. They get $174,000/yr to essentially ensure that they get that same paycheck 2-6 yrs later. Waste of my money and time.
On the topic of waste of time and money, the TEA party caucus poster boy, Rand Paul (R-KY) has released his budget proposal. While the Republicans have promised to cut $60-100 billion this year, Paul wants to cut $500 billion. And he's totally serious, especially because he has a monopoly on support from really angry people who think emotion, god and guns are the way to govern. But, his proposal is not based in reality. There is a big, fat, obvious line between starving the government and taking it out back and pulling an "old yeller" as Paul is suggesting. So, this budget, which he spent so much wasted time on will not budge beyond the paper it was written on.
The following numbers come from a Washington Examiner article:
Legislative Branch: $1.283 billion (23%)
Judicial Branch: $2.434 billion (32%)
Agriculture: $42.542 billion (30%)
Commerce: $5.322 billion (54%)
Defense: $47.5 billion (6.5% - WOW...that means our Def budget is over $730 billion!)
Education: $78 billion (83%)
Energy: $44.2 billion (100% - Nuclear is shifted to DOD)
Health and Human Service: $26.51 billion (26%)
Homeland Security: $23.765 billion (43%)
Housing and Urban Development: $53.1 billion (100%)
Interior: $10.934 billion (78%)
Justice: $9.057 billion (28%)
Labor: $2.803 billion (2%)
State: $20.321 billion (71%)
Transportation: $42.81 billion (49%)
Veterans: No Cuts
Corps of Engineers: $1.854 billion (27%)
EPA: $3.238 billion (29%)
General Services: $1.936 billion (85%)
International Assistance: $24.3 billion (100%)
NASA: $4.5 billion (25%)
National Science Foundation: $4.723 billion (62%)
Office of Personnel Management: $9.07 billion
Social Security Admin: No Cuts
FCC: $2.15 billion (22%)
ABOLISH: Affordable Housing, Consumer on Fine Arts, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for Arts, National Endowment for Humanities and State Justice Institute - $2.05 billion
Misc: $44.581 billion
I respect Paul for his ideological orthodoxy. But symbolic gestures like Paul's budget waste time. A lot of his proposed cuts are political nonstarters (cuts in Homeland Security, Defense, Energy, International Assistance, State Interior, Agriculture, Housing and Commerce) because they are linked to long term strategic goals accepted by a majority of both parties. Cuts in Agriculture will stymie economic recovery in rural states, cuts in Homeland Security, Defense, State and International Assistance will hugely affect creating stability in Afghanistan and the Middle East, abolishing Housing completely will create a larger population of homeless and any cuts in Commerce will slow down our economic recovery. Straight abolition of departments in the government, like Energy, Housing and Education, are still considered politically taboo and part of a fringe element.
Rand - If you want to seriously reduce the deficit and government spending, please introduce some common-sense budgets. If not, relegate yourself to the side, give up your salary and stop wasting my time. Then, Congress can get back to business (whatever it does...) and agree (pending a party-line vote) to accept two irrelevant members from the Paul family.
No comments:
Post a Comment